much as (he did not say this) your soap or your butter is—and have lost all doubt on the subject.
On the windows of Catholic book-shops in Spain one often sees the word “Bulas” in large type. You enter and ask for a “bula”—or you may go to the nearest priest's house for one—and find that there are four species, at two different prices. Lay a peseta on the counter, and demand the ordinary “bula de la Santa Cruzada.” A flimsy piece of paper, much sealed and impressed, about a foot square, and with the signature of the Archbishop of Toledo, is handed to you, with your change of 25 centimos. You have not bought it. You gave an “alms” of 75 centimos (about 6d.) to the Church (minus the shopman's commission), and the Church graciously accorded you—but it would occupy too much of my space even to enumerate the extraordinary spiritual privileges which you can purchase for sixpence in that favoured land. The central grace is a “plenary indulgence.”
Catholic theology teaches that there are two alternatives to heaven, two unfathomable pits of fire—Hell and Purgatory. If you die in serious, unabsolved sin, you go to hell; but few Catholics ever think of going there. It is so easy to get oneself drafted into the second department. But the second department, Purgatory, is exceedingly unpleasant; the fire and other horrors are the same; the duration is uncertain. Here, again, however, the Church comes to the relief. Confession and sorrow have relieved you of the first danger; something may be done to avoid the second. In earlier and harder times one went on the Crusades to achieve this. Some Spaniards offered the Papacy money instead, and received the comforting assurance that the Purgatory-debt was cancelled (a “plenary indulgence”). The sum has sunk with the course of centuries, and now in Spain you gain this gorgeous assurance, with a dozen others, for an “alms” of sixpence. But attempt to give your alms to the poor, and you get no bula.
That is the common bula of Spanish church life. The rich, of course, pay more than the small sum which is stated on the paper; and as the ignorant peasants find frequent need of this comforting assurance, since it only lasts until they sin
